Australian scientists aim to reduce sheep burps

Nov 29, 2009

File photo of a farmer droving his sheep, northwest of Melbourne. Australian scientists are working to breed a sheep that belches less, as they look for ways to reduce harmful methane emissions from the country's woolly flocks, a researcher said Sunday.

Australian scientists are working to breed a sheep that belches less, as they look for ways to reduce harmful methane emissions from the country's woolly flocks, a researcher said Sunday.

Twelve percent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions originate with agriculture, and some 70 percent of that amount is blamed on ruminant livestock, with most of it coming from burps, study leader John Goopy said.

With sheep, almost all of the methane produced comes out of their mouths.

"There's not very much passed out the animal's anus at all," said Goopy, from the New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment.

Scientists are measuring the sheep's methane emissions by herding them into a specially designed booth shortly after they eat and then calculating the amount of gas belched.

They hope to find whether there is a genetic link between the sheep that produce the least methane, which could then be exploited to breed low-emissions sheep.

Of the 200 sheep so far tested, about half produced much more than average while the other half belched considerably less methane.

"The biggest single determinant of methane production in cattle and sheep is the amount of feed they eat. But even once that is taken into account, I have found significant differences between individual animals," Goopy told AFP.

The scientist said methane has about 17 times the environmental warming capacity of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

He said if the methane produced by Australia's 80 million or so sheep was reduced by just 10 or 15 percent in the next decade, it would have "a substantial and also a long-term impact on our greenhouse gas emissions".

"And if we can find a hereditary link and specifically breed for that outcome it will be an ongoing reduction, it won't be a one-off."

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It's just becoming a farce now. Climate "scientists" need to concentrate more on work which supports their thesis than so-called work suggesting that we might need to tape up sheep's orifices.

On a more general note, it's fairly disturbing that climate scientists react to skeptics by labelling them "deniers" as though they're Nazis. In an ideal world, scientists would try to falsify their own hypothesis (which is widely recognized by philosophers of science as the best way to proceed). How sad that they react with such paranoia when everyone else tries to do the job they should be doing (that of criticism).

The problem isn't the science, its just that the global warming camp have employed less trolls to post propaganda in comments on websites like this.

I'm a skeptic, and I've never been paid a penny by anyone, and don't expect to. I'm a poorly paid PhD student who looks at the less than one degree C temp rise over the last century and asks for the error bar associated with it (not to mention the fact that I also ask whether this measurement of "human induced" warming has been adjusted for natural variation). I've never received a satisfactory response; it's as though the climate scientists didn't learn statistics at school.

The argument that the commenters are in the employ of "Big Oil" and the like is usually horsesh*t. This isn't to say that the big energy companies have not done sneaky things in recent years to support their own special interests (as BOTH sides have), but nowadays the big energy companies tend to support the warming agenda. How about that for irony...

"There's not very much passed out the animal's anus at all," said Goopy

This is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen on this site. Seriously, the guy's name is Goopy and he devotes his life to breeding "low-emissions sheep." It's pretty amazing where people try to point their fingers, especially when it's really no one's fault at all (see: recent revealing of incriminating emails from so-called climate scientists)

"They hope to find whether there is a genetic link between the sheep that produce the least methane, which could then be exploited to breed low-emissions sheep."

I laughed my face off with low-emission sheep ... if I manage to subdue my fits long enough I might be able to add something here... until they invent low-emission sheep .. boycott lamb chops etc for the good of our planet.

this should be on BBspot.com - don't know whether its real or someone's been on the waccy tobaccy.

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